Integration of Information

Integration of information enables us to create a common view of information across the organization. It also creates the opportunity for new insights based on combinations of previously disparate sets of information.

Server GIS integrates geospatial information with established business applications. As a result, the organization gains new value from existing information, which in turn improves the decision making process and increases ROI.

With an emphasis on integration, we are seeing an emergence of broader reaching systems that include shared database servers to provide a single repository for data. In the same sense, applications are also being shared from the server.

The MassHighway Crash Data System integrates SQL Server Analysis services and OLAP functions with server GIS to perform analytical functions such as crash hot spot analysis.

Enterprises of all sizes (from single departments to global organizations) are faced with business challenges that are driving them to integrate previously disparate systems. And location is the link that can tie separate pieces of the enterprise puzzle together and create a common operating picture.

For years we have seen GIS presented as a means to bring spatial information together for a more complete spatial picture. Now, however, we are realizing the benefits of also integrating traditionally non-spatial business information with spatial information in order to make business data more valuable and put it in the form of charts, reports, and maps.

A service oriented architecture (SOA) is the implementation backbone of doing service-level integration. GIS can greatly enhance the business value of an SOA implementation. The geocentric workflows supported by server GIS enables integration of disparate business databases through location, increasing the SOA's ability to gain greater value from these established business systems.